Don't babble on, make the first sentence very good. People have small attention spans, make sure you start well

Make it easy to understand, not everybody will be an expert on the subject matter like you (might?) be, so if there are any ambiguous terms, explain them.

DCrux
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2008-01-20T23:33:54Z —
#3

Another perspective, a quality article generates links, reducing the need to SEO the life out of your site.

If the objective is sales, the quality article moves the sales process. And you should be able to test the contribution to sales.

hooperman
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2008-01-21T10:56:15Z —
#4

Every article has quality, it's the level that varies.

For me a high quality article gives me the information I need in a concise fashion (without the babbling that battye mentioned). It's structured well so the material is presented in a logical sequence and the different subtopics within are easy to locate.

I suppose quality means different things to different people though. Like DCrux says, if the goal is sales an article has high quality if it meets that goal and generates those sales.

system
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2008-01-21T16:04:28Z —
#5

my criteria:

title should be catchy- no need for a long one, 4-5 words is enough

the first paragraph should be meaty- the gist of your article must be included in there

ending should be related with your first paragraph- for uniformality

old_expat
—
2008-01-28T09:26:16Z —
#6

A great article makes the reader sorry that it has ended.

shaeldl
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2008-01-28T14:46:41Z —
#7

You win or lose in the way you write your title. After you won in the title war, maintain the momentum in the first two paragraphs.

victoria_neely
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2008-01-28T20:13:28Z —
#8

My idea of a good article:

Good title: It should be enticing, and it should let the reader know what to expect. Bonus if it uses strong keywords that people do searches for every day.

Informative: The article has the information your reader was looking for. It solves a problem or answers a question.

Concise: Most people on the web do a lot of skimming as opposed to careful reading. They're usually turned off by gigantic chunks of text, which does not encourage skimming. Rambling kills readability, too.

SEO friendly: This is more of a search engine thing than a people thing, which is why it comes last. Slipping in a few strong keywords can help it get found. Overdoing it makes your article an unreadable mess and could get you slapped around by Google.

1st paragraph - outline your article, share the points you are going review in the article, and state why these points are important.

2nd paragraph - review point one

3rd paragraph - review point two

4th paragraph - review point three

5th paragraph - restate the points of your article and reiterate why those points were important.

coolslko
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2008-02-02T10:06:54Z —
#10

USPB said:

Can you tell me what are the Criteria of a Quality Article?

Well.......a quality article should be relevant to the subject or title, descriptive, easy to understand and it may contain not less than 500 words.Articcle should be informative and interstting to its users. Having a summary in the start will be better so that a use can understand what is in the article all about.

Article should also includes a little bio about the author.

Walkere
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2008-02-02T20:42:28Z —
#11

victoria_neely said:

Easy to read: Basic language that anyone can understand.

Concise: Most people on the web do a lot of skimming as opposed to careful reading. They're usually turned off by gigantic chunks of text, which does not encourage skimming. Rambling kills readability, too.

These points are really important, and oft-overlooked.

Normal writing conventions suggest you should have 5-6 or more sentences per paragraph. In writing online, I find that I often write 2-3 sentence paragraphs.

Sentences should also be short and to the point. Avoid complex sentence structure and excessive commas. Dashes are your friend - they help emphasize points and break longer sentences up into smaller bits.

Depends on if your looking for SEO or more for quality. You don't have to necessarily sacrifice SEO though for good quality, its just that it means you have to slightly change some things to make it more seo friendly.

Patricksia2007
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2008-02-11T23:24:59Z —
#14

I think all of you have listed some of the important facts. Besides, I would like to add on to this thread, you should also consider to properly insert your keywords in your articles so that it could rank higher in the search engine as well....

May success with you...

Aritra
—
2008-02-15T14:56:31Z —
#15

A Quality article should comprise of the following:

Valuable informationNo grammatical errors- try to use short and simple sentences. Check for run on sentences.Should have small paragraphsShould a catchy title that indicates the substance of the articleAt the end, put a conclusion.

Hope that helps. If you need more information, please free to drop me a PM.:)

Thanks

megamanXplosion
—
2008-02-18T08:42:50Z —
#16

The article's purpose determines the criteria for high quality. It's impossible to list criteria in a comprehensive manner that would work across the spectrum. There are a few general guidelines though.

(1) Be concise.

Your articles are read for entertainment or educational purposes. It's difficult to entertain when rambling or to inform with words without substance. This rule should be occassionally broken, though. Your reader might have emotional ties to the subject so dissent could hit them forcefully. Think of dissentful points like punches in the boxing ring: sometimes it helps to slow the pace. Be wordy when necessary, otherwise be concise.

(2) Be grammatically correct.

The purpose of rule (1) is to compact your information but compactness is not the primary goal. The length of your article doesn't matter if there are grammatical errors. Grammatical errors make you stop and reread the sentence, which should be considered as a form of redundancy that should be eliminated.

(3) Use the shortest word that covers your meaning.

If the same meaning can be expressed with a long word and a short word, use the short one. When choosing between a long word and a short one, always be careful to not confuse their meaning. Do not use may when you mean might. Can is about capability; may, permissibility; and might, probability. Again, use the shortest words that cover your meaning.

(4) Be cautious of arbitrary rules.

The number of sentences per paragraph should be determined by the subject. When I skim an article to determine if it's really worth my time to read, or to refresh my memory, I tend to look at the first and last sentence of each paragraph to get the gist of the article. Arbitrary paragraph breaks make skimming more difficult. Use as many sentences per paragraph as necessary to introduce the subject, make relevant points, and to present a conclusion.

Also, be cautious of arbitrary rules about the length of a sentence. The most important thing about sentences is not their length but their complexity. Arbitrary sentence breaks to make all of them short leads to monotony. Long sentences allow information to rapidly flow into the reader's mind. Short sentences pop. Like firecrackers, a pop alone will startle and awe but a predictable series of them are bland and monotonous. If a sentence is complex and difficult to understand, or is wordy, then you should rewrite but do not concern yourself with the length of the sentence if it covers a single point and is easy to understand.

george56
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2008-02-19T12:11:03Z —
#17

Article Writing is not that much typical I say---

The thing should be kept in mind is that UR Grammar, u should be to the point....means if writing to a topic then be on that topic dont move to anywhere....

for eg. I have seen some examples ..like an article on women....means todays women.the article started from women and after 5-6 line it moved to politics and ends in the history of that country....

so be to the point.....grammaticaly correct.

I hope there are lots of point but these things to be kept in mind....

<snip>

old_expat
—
2008-02-20T00:14:34Z —
#18

kennick said:

I asked a very reputable marketer recently "Which is more important in a campaign, traffic or sales copy?"

His answer was emphatic, "Sales Copy."

So we can get traffic, either paid or free, we can write press releases or articles to try and drive visitors to our site, but without compelling sales copy we will never convert those hungry buyers into sales for our products.

How can we learn to write the sort of sales letter or web page that will convert into sales?<snip>

Kennick, thank you for this excellent post. We don't see nearly enough about copywriting.

I would like to ask a question more related to a "store". Let's say I'm trying to sell widgets .. and considering perhaps 9 items on a page with a "more information" or "detailed description" link that goes to an individual page. Is 9 too many? Or should there be one dominant widget and smaller displays beside or below?

And how long can the description be before shoppers get overloaded?

I know this is as much about marketing as "writing".

jthrice
—
2008-02-28T07:08:04Z —
#19

I agree with kennick. The quality of the writing can't be overestimated. You don't need to be an English Lit major, but if people like reading your voice, they'll come back.

I've found [Poynter's 50 Writing Tools to be a great guide to improving my writing skills. I'd recommend that anybody that blogs also pick up a copy of Zinsser's excellent [URL="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWriting-Well-30th-Anniversary-Nonfiction%2Fdp%2F0060891548%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1204182117%26sr%3D8-2&tag=weilosuni-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">test</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=weilosuni-20&l=ur2&o=1"]"On Writing Well"](http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-50-tools-which-can-help-you-in-writing.html), which is a classic, and rightly so.

cavedog
—
2008-02-29T03:51:17Z —
#20

Most articles are way too eloquent. If want to read a novel, I will pick up War and Peace. Give it to me in 100 words or less. Use links to explain keywords or elements. If I don't understand it, I can educate myself on the specifics.

Too many statistics cloud the story. It can also make it look like you are cherry picking your facts. And make sure your facts are backed up by good sources. Just because you can link to somebody's two page website doesn't mean it is worthy of inclusion.

Bullets. Concise statements. No need to build a table, just show me the food.

Humor. Even a touch of it shows a sense of balance. On how you are unbalanced.

And for the sake of all the retired English teachers out there, spell check.